M is for Medieval Metal Men

So to the other half of 'antiquity', the newer half, although where you place the line is anybody's guess, hidden as it is, in the murk of the Dark Ages . . . is it Arthur and the end of Empire, the rise of the Carolingians, or the fall of the Carolingians, or likewise the Byzantines, or the fall of state fortresses, and rise of private castles?

 

War gamers place it later, with the coming of gunpowder, as a series of major rule changes!. . . If I asked you, you'd all have a different answer! But in toy-soldier land, it tends to mean fully tinned-men, or men in tights!

 

Oh, look out! We've got a new upload screen! It's got a colour graphic and a dotted boarder, that was worth the geeks' wages, wasn't it! How many changes since 2008? The original was fine, all the images went in a temporary folder as thumbnails you could return to, and import in ones or multiples. Every change since as either been pointless tinkering, or actually a negative experience/detrimental . . . Sigh.. And while they used to be hosted on Googles servers, they're now all 'in the cloud' to be lost in an instant, if the Internet breaks!

 

Anyway, onwards and upwards, these Cherilea 60mm's were, I think, given to me by someone, possibly Isaac, as 'unsellable', and while they don't have a huge fan-base, all box-tickers should be after a set, and while even I didn't have many of the Crusaders, I've always liked the standard ones, of which the chap on the right is one, and he has the shield with the late Sharna Ware shield motif which matches my lancer! 

 

Marx 'Men in Tights' (was it called 'Men in Pantyhose' across The Pond?), a bit scruffy, but a good clean will spruce-up the priest, while Robin (or, would it have been Robyn?) needs a dab of glue. Not sure if they are Marx originals or tatty Rado rissues?

 

A couple of nice Markus Hinton marked 25mm knights, painted to a nineteen-seventies standard, and a pair of nice box-tickers.

 

As are these two, indeed, almost every recent show lot or Chris parcel, has produced a variation of this shot, with both a Hong Kong copy (left, new colour?) and an MPC original on the right, of the 40mm medievals.

 

Another pair, and more Titan/Strawberry Group handled Supreme knights, I should have all the poses by now, but they are in various different places, and I don't know how many I have in silver, how many in black? And I've always rather liked the all plastic, yet Deetail vibe of them. While there was a gold issue, but possibly not in the UK?

 

On the right, a useful addition to the stash of Cherilea 1st version we saw here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/10/d-is-for-dustbin-lids.html

 

And a lump of chewed polymer from Shotts in Scotland, which will head straight to recycling, but I photographed everything for completion!

 

I've said before you can never have everything, but you can have a damn-good try, and this Dulcop man-at-arms, seems to be one I didn't have (or don't recognise), although, of course, now I definitely do! And two of my favourite 'toy' knights, the Lido pod-feet chaps, also in need of a good clean!

 

The 'orphan' photo! One belongs in the sci-fi/fantasy post, and two belong in the previous post, but for two ten-counts the executive decision was that it go here!

 

A nice Cherilea smallie, in the less common green, a small Italeri, the game piece mentioned a couple of times, here at Small Scale World, recently, and the two figures from the Revell/Miniature Masterpiece decorative chariot kit - I seem to remember the Gowland & Gowland  instructions suggesting it be used with a table-lamp stand, or bookends! In this insipid white 'styrene, however, probably the Glencoe reissue?

 

I'm never too sure about these, but I think it's three (slightly darker) PVC-rubber ones from Marx, behind, and two polyethylene ones from Tudor Rose, in front, but they could all be Marx, and have been reissued several times, including the multicoloured rack toy knock-offs a few years ago - and yes, I know we're into RTM, but one thing at a time, it's too damn hot . . . and now, humid!

 

Closing shot is all small scale, and unlike yesterday’s ancient clones, these are all Giant Originals, mostly the late versions, but one, in green, of the trio of strange dancing loons I question-marked in my original One Inch Warrior article.
 

And, again, thanks to Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin for their input at the show.

A is for Ancient Archaic Antagonists of Antiquity!

Into the final furlong as far as the 2026 Plastic Warrior Toy Soldier Show plunder and loot is concerned, and I've split this lot into ancient and medieval posts, with the older soldiers first!

 

So, we'll go back 3000-odd years, to the siege of Troy, a probably real event, heavily fictionalised, the facts lost to national and region mythology, and the demented whitterings of priests, or bards, or priest's bards, no doubt, and thanks to Matt at Hobby Bunker, who brought these over.

 

I'd actually bought three other sets from him, either at last years show, or at the London Show in December (?), either way, I forgot to shoot them, and knowing these two were still to be found, never got around to it, but in all there are five sets of 'Troy' era figures, these two, and the sets:

• LOD 015 - The Amazons
• Figure Set #1 - The War at Troy - Commemorative Set, Ten Years of LOD
• Figure Set #19 - Amazons, Aeneas and Ajax

And the aim now is to open them all, and have a decent photo-shoot of all the pre-classical Greek sets from LOD, my first by them, and probably my last, just because I'm not doing the post 1990 stuff in the larger scales, there is tons of it, other people are collecting it, other sources are annotating it, and I haven't got the room, or budget for it, with so much vintage still to be found, but I do like ancient Greeks!

 

Similar point of discussion with these Supreme sets, I buy them as box-tickers when I see them cheap, we've done the Knights - of all types - to death, here at Small Scale World, and looked at the Romans, Crusaders, and was it the Vikings? I think we've seen three of these now, and while I haven't tracked down the Arabs/Saracens, one of their camels is in the Egyptian set above, and these both have one each of the two common horse poses.

 

Interestingly, the Greek looking commander figure and archer sculpts, usually smaller, from some of the medieval sets, aren't actually included in the pose-count for the Alexander set! But with their segmented-armour, knee-pads they'd look a bit silly, or even sillier than normal!

 

Unknown, probably still on Amazon if I look hard enough, and marked 'CHINA', I'm not sure if they are supposed to be cavemen, predating Troy by about 500,000-years (give or take a few 100,000), or 19th-20th century Zulu warriors, but they are fun, and were in one of the donations I think, so basically free, to share with you and tick the box! AND . . . they're not that bad, as sculpts, but the axe is a bit OTT, and the lady isn't going to be doing much damage with that hand-trident!

 

Two lovely sculpts, both purchases, the Athena is probably not that rare, being a tourist souvenir, but he joins a foot one we saw years ago, while the Nardi is quite a bit less common, and you can tell I really like them - multiple shots; gotta' do them justice!

 

Despite being late to the larger scales, as far as collecting goes, there aren't many massive holes or gaps in the UK collection, but this is one, and while I have the Cleopatra somewhere I think, on her chaise-longue/daybed thing, and, you may remember, I picked-up the Sphinx a year or so ago, I don't have many of this double set, half tan-plastic Egyptians, half brown Nubian slaves/captives.

 

And, yes, I know the Nubians were in charge under the Kushite kings, but Cherilea decided to sculpt them in chains, holding fans or cowering! Also, I've really got to get the cheetah and handler. But in the meantime these are a useful addition to a couple of play-worns, and maybe some reissues? I'd forgotten how colourful the series is, too!

 

Roman Gladiators as issued by Quaker Sugar Puffs and Tom Smith Christmas crackers.

 

Lucky Clover and other non-Giant Romano-Greek stuff.

 

Non-Giant Vikings.

 

The small scale stuff, as sorted mostly from Trevor's bag, and the similar early-purchase bag of hollow Hong Kong horse stuff, The Quaker have been done here, the Vikings, gold 'Trojans' and black forts have been covered on the But is it Giant Blog, the rest are pending, but some are covered on the HK Romans page above.!

 

Thanking Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin again, there's a fair bit of their stuff above. 

S is for Several Sculpted Spacemen

In addition to the two - quite sensible - rack toys, and the loose figures I used for the first narrative post, there were also some more assorted or generic spacemen and astronauts among the plunder of the first weekend in July, and which are the subject of this second space post.

 

Martin let me have these, pretty-much at cost, and a maker's name has come out since we last looked at them; Anabea, from Argentina, I think there were only the four poses copied from Deetail, but there is an alternate alien head used sometimes.

 

The Reisler also came from Martin, and is a duplicate of one previously seen, however this time he has a clear helmet, as opposed to the blue-tinted one we saw last time, a piece of Hing Fat junk from modern China, and a Cherilea pod-foot. I think my based sample is fair enough now, but I'm short on the pod-feet ones, with mostly HK or Marx soft vinyl versions.

 

Two K&M-Wild Republic on the left, with two new, baseless figures on the right. I think I may have seen their set, and if it's the one I'm thinking of, it's quite an infantile thing, for such realistic figures? A chunky flag-pole would appear to be missing.

 

A very cleanly marked 60mm Tudor Rose copy of Premier on the right, while on the left is a giant, 100mm-odd, polyethylene version of the Archer spacewoman, I think she may be one of the ones you see singly in bags marked A-OK USA, although there are plenty of parallels with the Hong Kong knock-offs, the quality is better. There should be an equally huge helmet, but it may be convertible for something else at that size - some of the modern travel-bottle sets have round-bottomed containers?

 

These Marx 60mm guys didn't survive the trip to Whitton, but I have better examples, so I guess it's off to 'recyce' for them, before their free-radicals contaminate anything else . . . Soylent Metallic Blue, yummy!

 

Also four post-Giant clones came out of the woodwork in the course of the day, three of the type 'C1' and a commoner 'C2', all grist to the mill;

 

https://butisitgiant.blogspot.com/search/label/Astronauts 

 

There is a bit more sci-fi/fantasy in the TV-Movie/Cartoon post, still to come, and thanking Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin for their part in what was a brilliant day.

D is for Donation - Chris - Wild West

Part two of the recent Wild West donations, this lot courtesy of Chris Smith, and we've a few interesting things to look at, starting with a real find, especially so when you consider how much help Chris has already given on the subject of pencil-sharpeners, both of the Hong Kong based KT, and related West German examples.

 

Aren't they fascinating? Almost mint plastic, but a lot of damage, reflecting their age (probably 1960's, or even 1950's) and material, which is a frangible polystyrene. But we have enough (lower right shot), to get a good idea of them including both arms, which were originally glued on.

 

The cowboys bodies had a weight attached to the end of the unfortunately positioned rod, which kept them attached to the horse (lower left shot, excuse the dirty nail), but swinging back and forth, as they mossied over the range!

 

Two colours of horse, up to six colours of rider parts and/or sharpeners, with grey-green mounting brackets and pink heads, this is an incredible find, a lovely gift and possibly best in parcel. I was so busy sorting and bagging everything I didn't really give thought to 'best in parcel', so there may be more, we're only a third of the way through these posts!

 

Another sample of the figures Brain ID'd as being from 1950/60's Lucky Bags, and amazingly, given how many I have now, there are new colours and poses in this lot, and a complete version of a figure we've previously only seen damaged, so a sample which continues to grow, but shows no signs of being the definitive one yet - I think we're over 30 poses, so far!

 

I was only waxing lyrical about the Texas Indian in silver the other day, and a yellow one turns up! I'm beginning to suspect there was only one each on the mounted, and I may have a cowboy somewhere, in red?

 

The green semi-flat Indian is quite a surprise, I've had loads of these come in over the years, they've been blogged here, and I sort of assume they were a replacement for the brittle ones above in Lucky Bags, but every one I've encountered, has been red, we may even have looked at different shades of red, now green one turns up? Raising the possibility of other colours . . . yellow, blue? Lovely find Chris! [Later - I did have a single yellow one! https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/10/u-is-for-unknown-wild-west-flats-3.html]

 

Another Culpitt late type, a damaged Minimodels, those rifle tips are often missing, but the cowboys survive better than the Indians, who are almost always weaponless! The dark green chap is another of the 40mm backwoodsmen who turn-up, out of Hong Kong, and the larger lady is a rather nice, undamaged piece of poured resin, from the tourist trade, I suspect.

 

Atlantic canoe from the Davy Crockett set, I have very little Atlantic in the large scale, as I had it all in the small scale, before the Blog extended the remit of the collection! The other is probably a sports boat from a roof rack or infant-toy play set, marked 1979 Buddy L Corp.

 

Coach and wagon oddments, include three of the teeny ones from mini tree-crackers, a larger 'W.Germany' one missing its horse (orange) and the horse from another (pastel blue), missing its coach, which might be German or from Hong Kong!

 

In the middle is one of those Japanese novelties in Celluloid, missing it's wheels, but all these things have their own place, and bits or parts make wholes, while multiples make better samples, even if they're incomplete!

 

Two 1st version Cherilea 54mm swoppets will make useful spares too, and the red torso may be another, or he may be a Kinder/Italian type, novelty figure part?

 

Being a consummate collector in his own right, and having sent dozens of these parcels to the Blog now, Chris knows to keep the cleaner samples of these many, many, Giant knock-offs separate, so the bag has what looks like a mix of two semi-identified (by me) types, so all I'll have to do is swap a few riders back onto the correct 'other' horse.

 

While the loose stuff is the ones-and-twos, which come in with every mixed lot, and will require more effort/diligence in sorting, but you can see the cracker types in both sizes (mini and 'Lone Star' pirates), a Blue Box wagon horse and other treats.

 

Similar material here, with a possible post-Giant gun team in the four, but it could equally be a wagon (probably the red/green ones) team, while the pair of 'Large Standing' are from the Cracker and other Giant gun copies (sans limbers, the gun is pulled direct!), and the two farm carts were also Cracker prizes I think, I have yet to find them on cards?

 

Finishing this section with a huge tee-pee, I suspect it's from 3- or 4-inch action figures, but it's not much larger than the Britains one, and has some similarities in construction, assuming some poles are missing? But what's particularly interesting is the material, which is a sort of compressed version of the faux-chamois leather, used to dry-off cars when valeting them! But retaining a softness, those 'leathers' don't, but they are soft when you first buy them, and it's the constant wetting and drying which renders them so stiff I think. A very unusual thing, and many thanks again to Chris for all of this.

D is for Donation - Peter - Wild West

Yee-haw pardners! It's the Wild West today, and again leading with Peter's stuff, some of which dates back to last autumn, and there are a few items of interest, so let's get stuck in;

An eclectic little bunch, with three relatively contemporary, and still findable in rack toys, Airfix Indian copies of the third or fourth generation, but cheerful enough, a Deetail original who needs a bit of hot-water treatment (and Deetail Wild West is an absence in my collection, no more than a handful!), the grey chap was Boley in the 'States and others elsewhere (Ackerman?), and is a sub-scale copy of an Airfix cowboy.

 

I think we had a wagon from this bunch, or possibly an Indian set, here marked-up to PMS, somewhat Britains Deetail in styling, and somewhat Supreme/SP in execution, and while the foot figures ARE Supreme copies, these - the mounted only, are, I think, all new sculpts? I'll have to check!

 

There was a recent debate about the chap on the left in Plastic Warrior magazine (issue 202 out now - https://www.facebook.com/PlasticWarrior?fref=ts), so suffice to say I think this is the UK version of a figure also seen out of Hong Kong, he should have a rifle through that loop and, I suspect, other accessories?

 

On the right, a common enough copy of Jean, from the 1980's/1990's, we looked at them briefly a while ago, there are several generations/issuers of these, from Hong Kong, and we'll return to them one day for a better overview.

 

I suspect the bulk of these are those flesh-coloured kits, as supplied to the 'States and pointed out to me in a past post on Elastolin stuff, when Ross Mac remembered they were sold from Henry Bodenstedt's shop in New England in the 1960's, the bases being uniform/flat yellow. The prone guy might be factory-finished, but I don't think so.

 

The mounted figure who came with them, another home-paint I think.

 

Picked-up the other day, the dobbin on the left is Cherilea I think, but missing a tail, and I'm not sure if the rider belongs on him, Wild West is a bit of a weakness with me, playing catch-up with the large scale since 2009, I've not paid enough attention to the West, and there's a hell of a lot of production, in all scales from many manufacturers!

 

A Tudor Rose late production figure in polyethylene, and a nice horse, probably from a French or 'W. Germany' novelty or premium wagon, or coach, and a lady who's lost her hands, see looks like she may be from a Christmas village, but has a huge lump of glue on her base, and might be from a music-box or something, but I'd rather have her in the stash, as a sample, than not know I didn't have her, if you know what I mean . . . oh my god, what else am I missing?! 

 

Culpitt's 2nd generation, I'm beginning to suspect the integral based eight, were not from the same source as the plug-ins also carried by Injectapalstic-JSP-AHM etc . . . but were commissioned by Culpitt, to undercut whoever they were getting the earlier ones from? Something Culpitt had a history of, doing the dirty on George Musgrave over at Gemodels, with his cake decorations.

 

Thanks to Peter Evans for all these, foot for thought, gaps filled and some nice ACW!

L is for Loose Lots - Sandown - Sci-Fi & Fantasy

There's still a couple of Sandown related things in the queue, but they may join the many folders down the bottom (of Picasa!) which date back to up to fifteen years ago, it will get posted one day . . . it will! In the meantime, here's the sci-fi and fantasy element of my busy scurrying and ferreting, back in February!

 

Gareth found these and brought them to my attention, he managed to get another, 14th pose, but I've already got a reasonable sample of these, and we have seen them here before, painted, and as unpainted late production, including whacky plastic colours (fluorescent pink, green and oranges), as well as visits to bagged and loose Thunderbird additions to the range, in soft rubber and polystyrene, so I've probably got the missing pose?

 

Ovni (UFO) from Comansi, I don't know if these are factory painted, or home-paints, the seller and Gareth thought the latter, and when painted, they tend to have brown bases, so these are probably not 'official'. But, they were sold under various guises, as well as the UFO moniker, and the late Thunderbirds sets, they came as Battle of the Planets and as The Invaders TV series tie-ins, so they may have ended up looking like this at one point - the seller had quite a few, all in the same condition.

 

The fact that some faces are painted, others not, is also odd, a home-painter would do them all the same, a team of out-painter's wouldn't be so fussy? The real interest, to me, is in the plastic colours underneath, mid-green and metallic blue, which I think are earlier than my previous samples, making the whole sample, a better representation of Comansi's output.

 

A few minutes after publishing - In fact I think there's more than twenty poses in total, with the six Thunderbirds characters, maybe closer to thirty, we've seen a girl, a chap holding a space rifle parallel to the ground, a zombie/Frankenstein's Monster type, I think there's another kneeling one I don't have, a guy waving a space rifle, a guy holding an equipment box (which gives us 20/26), so when I've got my four or more samples together, we'll have a proper looks at them despite having had several 'proper' looks at them already! Doh!

 

Game playing pieces I suspect, and in the style of all that MB Games' stuff licensed from the Nottingham Mafia (Battle Masters, Hero Quest, Space Crusade, Space Hulk et al), but I'm in the dark as to which game these are from, and it's only the bases of the blue figures which are leading me in the GW direction? 

 

A blow-moulded astron . . . sorry, cosmonaut from the former Soviet Union, and while I'm not posting Russian stuff at the moment, this can be lost in amongst the other stuff. Not believed to be a parachute toy, but more of an infant's garden/beach/bath toy thing, a big chunk for tiny hands.

 

 "Wrestlers sah! Millions of 'em!"

 

Mattel's M.U.S.C.L.E., always nice to add a few more to the tub, especially these - mostly - coloured ones, when I first started finding these, they were usually the flesh-coloured chaps, and early web-pages would suggest the colours were rarer, but I think they were just later, so came to market later, and therefore come onto the secondary market later, too, they seem to turn-up quite often these days, but a nice sample, with a pocket monster to the fore.

 

The sublime and the ridiculous! Cherilea and Matchbox, although I'm being unfair, the Matchbox K-2002 Flight Hunter was a reasonable effort as the long-night of the long-knives in the toy industry of the early 1980's, bit deep. While I got the elusive space-slug, because he was affordable, due to his short-shot foot, I doubt he misses it!

 

Don't forget it's the London Toy Soldier Show tomorrow;

 

http://www.toysoldiershow.co.uk/